Learning about EV's, where do you start?

Good question, its one I asked on the Australian Electric Vehicle Association's forum. Somebody suggested looking up EV's on the wikipedia, which was indeed a great place to start reading about Electric Vehicles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle

Having read all that I was keen to find out how other people built their own EV's and what were the problems associated with doing this for the first time? What car is the best to convert? Which ones to steer clear of? How much will this cost? and what do I need to know before I can get it registered for the road here in South Australia? The requirements between states seems to be different.

I found a good article about "choosing a good vehicle for EV conversion" written by Bob Batson, at http://e-volks.com/gpage1.html. This site belongs to Wilderness EV a company in Utah, USA home of the Electric Volks Wagen. You can purchase complete vehicles from them or conversion kits to do your own. Its a good read.

One of the members of the AEVA forum has written a blog outlining every step he has taken to build his own EV from the ground up. Thats what I am currently working my way through at the moment. http://a4x4kiwi.blogspot.com/

The real Electric Car (EV) has arrived.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of my EV blog. The whole idea of 100% electric vehicles up until recently has been a bit of a dream to most people. Anyone who saw the 2006 documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car? a film that explores the birth, limited commercialization, and subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the US would have been convinced that we are not about to see or own an electric car in our life times.

I just discovered the other day (while trolling the Net) some manufacturers have not given up on the idea. Specifically one company named Tesla Motors.

They have produced a radically different version of the electric car, the Tesla Roadster, a 100% EV that looks like a Lotus Elise, can out drag a Porsche or Ferrari (zero to 60 in under 4 secs), has a range of approx 220 miles, a top speed of 125 miles per hour, takes 3.5 hours to recharge, and has a battery life of 100,000 miles. How much does it cost to run? 2 cents a mile. Check it out! http://www.teslamotors.com/

That is one mean machine if you ask me, the only drawback and the reason why I wont be rushing out to buy one, it costs US$109,000!

This is the explanation they give for producing an exclusive, expensive sportscar rather than one that the average punter can afford.

"While the Tesla Roadster's sticker price is in a league with other high-performance sports cars with similar specs, we recognize it's out of reach for a lot of people. We consciously chose to develop a high-end sports car as our first car in order to develop the “performance DNA” from which we could create other electric vehicles. Our next model will leverage the Tesla Roadster‘s technology, resulting in a less expensive sports sedan that we can sell at higher volume." http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/our_company.php

100's of rich celebrities are rushing to sign up and own a piece of Automotive history.

Who said the electric car was dead?